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Well, we are back from vacation and it’s time to dive back into Living Starship and get things finalized before the end of the year!

Despite my best efforts at trying not to think about ANYTHING game related during my vacation, the notion of using custom dice in one or more of the games kept haunting me.

So…fine! Let’s get the bits together and start making some prototypes:

Wed. Nov. 7, 2018

Things are really pulling together for the Living Starship Space Opera Box!

Academy Preludes is pretty much set and is heading into full-fledged public play testing.

Rise to Command is nearing the point of having its mechanics set but needs some play testing to make sure it’s as solid as it seems.

We are playing some Arkham Horror (the new 3rd edition) because its really cool and we suspect we’ll get some inspiration on how to handle missions and plot lines for Legacy Missions.

Thu. Oct. 31, 2018

Since the Living Starship Space Opera Box is going to have SO MUCH stuff in it (4 entire games!!), we are assembling all the rules into an e-book. It will have a searchable glossary and even a ton of content on the setting itself.

We may even include videos of gameplay, setup and rules explanations.

Academy Preludes is coming along rapidly. Here’s a look at the latest version of the player boards:

Thu. Oct. 25, 2018

Design Diary:The Academy Preludes has gone through about a half dozen full-fledged iterations. Each version has had some great pieces that work really well, but all of them, until now, have also fallen a bit flat in either feeling like a thorough game or fulfilling the base theme.

The base theme that we want to bring out in this game is the training of raw cadets - giving them the skills they need to serve onboard your starship in the legacy game.

We want it to be a dice game, have the sense that your cadets are going to class, gaining knowledge and then having to past tests using that learning. By the end of the game they need to be ready to serve in one of the seven Divisions of Service in the Fleet.

So, we took some inspiration from Sagrada. Academy Preludes now finally feels RIGHT as a dice-drafting game. Each player is claiming 3 dice from the classroom board each round and adding the results to their accumulated knowledge. When they have a high-enough score in one or more categories, they can take a test (claim a test card) from those available on the board.

The first player to complete one test in each Division (color), triggers the end of the game and gains bonus points for being the first to graduate.

Wed. Oct. 17, 2018

Design Diary:Living Starship is ballooning into a much bigger and grander project than we had expected. With crowdsourcing evolving, we feel that trying to offer each game as an individual entity on Kickstarter is not likely to be successful as there are so many game projects available.

The Legacy Missions is, possibly, the only one that might stand out enough (since the legacy format is popular), but we feel that we can make a much bigger splash by offering all four games in one giant box and really working to make them all flow together more tightly than originally intended.

The downside is that this dramatically increases the cost of production, but we hope that the spectacle of the product might outweigh some of that.

The Space Opera box will have a quick and casual game in it (RANKaree), lightweight games (Academy Preludes and Rise ot Command) and a full-fledged “gamer” game with Legacy Missions.

We are now taking a fresh look at how Academy Preludes works. The current version is that each player is playing one cadet. That means that if you wanted to “train”/customize your entire crew BEFORE playing Legacy Missions, you would need to play enough games to graduate 43 characters! With two players that would take 21.5 games which is probably daunting to many people.

We’re considereing ways of altering gameplay to have each player managing multiple characters in each Prelude game, but the offset is that there will likely be less of a feeling of individuality to each character.

We’ll keep you posted as to how things are working out.

Thu. Oct. 11, 2018

So we’re diving into the “big picture” of what our Living Starship line of games needs to be. We’re even thinking that the pending Kickstarter campaing might be for one BIG BOX that includes all 4 titles!

Wed. Sep. 19, 2018

Working on “interior” details of the Living Starship Legacy game. Putting together cards that detail all of the special system abilities that each department duty station provides to the players.

Each of these line items will be a sticker that gets added to the card as the players “unlock” each system in the first few games.

We’re thinking that back side ought to list all the Ship Functions as a reference.

Mon. Sep. 10, 2018

We’ve come up with a fun concept for marketing Living Starship with a tongue-in-cheek nod to Star Trek:

Wed. Sep. 5, 2018

B-Con was a good weekend. It was nowhere near as crazy as last year, but we still got in some good play testing with some fans and with fellow designers - especially Shaun Cranford of Myndzei Games.

We hammered out a lot of Starship Preludes issues and came away with a VASTLY improved methodology of integrating of the results of Prelude games into the full Legacy Starship game. Here is a peek at what the new legacy crew cards look like (on the right) as compared to the existing version (on the left).

Starship Preludes continue to evolve at a rapid pace. Here is the latest play test setup that, once we finished, spurred yet another set of overhaul concepts to tune it up and tighten the functioning of the mechanics.

We found there wasn’t as much interactivity with the dice as we had hoped so we are adding some simple elements to make it more interesting than “I acquire that die and that card, now it’s your turn to choos a die and card”.

Tue. Aug 14, 2018

With B-Con coming up at the end of the month, we are working feverishly to polish up all things Living Starship because we’ll be running sessions of all three games all weekend.

Rankaree - is, of course, all complete, but we’ll be running a couple sessions of it for those who want a light-wight card game themed with the military ranks of Living Starship.

Starship Preludes - are, at the moment, deep in development in a new dice game style inspired by Roll Player. You will be training cadets BEFORE they get stationed on your ship in the full board game.

You’ll be able to choose whether you want each character to be an officer or an enlisted crew member and you can let fate determine their starting motivations and aspirations or you can pick them to attempt to make sure you have a wellp-rounded crew.

Living Starship Boardgame - is roughly 80% complete and is fully playable. What is not fleshed-out yet are unique descriptors on most of the cards, but the underlying mechanics and gameplay are all very close to being set (though playtesting will likely reveal more things that need adjusting).

Mon. July 23, 2018

Yesterday's play test of the Living Starship Game at Board Game Republic went really well. One of the playtesters made a wonderful suggestion which, as always, seems perfectly obvious and leaves me with the felling that "I should have thought of that....duh!"

The FUNCTION meters that I have been using worked just fine, but constantly required extra explanation for people to grasp their flow (which was from bottom left then up to the next row and moving to the right, etc----or follow the alphabet printed on it). Once they understood it, they worked but I've been wanting something more intuitive.

One of the players mentioned something about bar charts or the like so I re-worked them today and WAH-LA! The new FUNCTION meters fill up (or un-fill as damage is taken) from the left column to the right. The look is also MUCH cleaner on the full board.

Tue. July 17, 2018

With a play test event coming up this weekend and a Denver gaming convention (B Con) at the end of August, we’re in full revamp mode with Living Starship.

Currently there is a redesign of the starship board to upgrade it’s look and feel into something more finished. The interiors are being designed with tech-looking walls in place of the plain straight lines and geometric shapes it previously used.

We are also putting the Department icons at each duty station which will help color blind players see the difference in locations more easily.

In Living Starship news, the Fleet Service Division icons (the first ones on the left of each row) have been revamped so as to be a uniform size for both digital and print use. Plus, we think they are just way cooler than all the previous iterations.

Wed. July 4, 2018

Happy Independance Day to all our folk in the USA!

We are currently working on the thrid iteration of what will become the Living Starship Prelude games where you get to train your starship crew BEFORE they begin their journey in the legacy board game.

This version ascribes polyhedral dice values to each character’s 8 Attributes (Strength, Reasoning, Demeanor, etc.) and those dice are used to train in classes and then complete exams in each of the seven Divisions (Tactical, Health, Science, etc.).

The winner of the each game is the player who gets their character through graduation in the Fleet Academy first.

Wed. June 20, 2018

After a crazy weekend of Pride festivities here in Denver, we’re back to crackin’ the whip on game design. Have been working on some Character Attribute card layouts and master scoresheets for the mini legacy game - Living Starship Preludes.

The scoresheet keeps tracks of your character’s education. They will graduate from training with a specialty in one of the seven Divisions and will be ready to post to your vessel in the Living Starship Board Game. The sheets are double-sided so that you can choose to train your characters as officers or enlisted (as needed).

Wed. June 13, 2018

Been working a lot on the Living Starship Preludes concept. In the current version, we are adapting the wonderful Ganz Schon Clever (by Wolfgang Warch) dice game into a legacy format.

The concept is that each character you play with is undertaking their education and training at Fleet Academy. As they complete each game they will be filling out their character form with their wins (whichever color/Division they score the best in) to see in which of the Divisions they will serve when getting posted to a starship.

There are 7 Divisions (Colors) and each test sheet will featuring a different arrangement (there are 2,520 different combinations!), so no two games will ever be alike.

Plus, the players all work off the same test sheet and 7 random dice are drawn each round (there are 5 dice of each of the 7 colors).

Wed. June 6, 2018

SO MANY THINGS in development, it’s hard to keep all the balls in the air. However, we have yet another exciting new project to announce - DRAG HAUS - featuring the artwork of Denver drag queen and artist, Holly Monroe.

This casual card game puts popular Denver drag personalities into your hands. Use an established drag house such as the Haus of Cortez or Haus Alnite or concoct your own by mixing and matching the queen cards.

Then you will craft the look of each personalitiy in your house with the avaiable drag cards for Face, Hair, Frock and more before tossing them on stage to collect the most tips from the audience.

More details to come soon!

Wed. May 30, 2018

In a creative fugue fueled by chocolate martinis, we got a lot of work done on the mini legacy games - Living Starship Preludes - that will serve as character prologues for the main Living Starship board game.

We also concocted a loose outline for a superhero legacy game that will be set in the timeline betweenLiving Empires and Living Starship. It will likely have a similar feel to Netrunner but will not focus on digital, corporate espionage and more on how the society is embracing and exploring genetic manipulation.

After all, all the races populating the galaxy in Living Starship evolved out of the fantasy races in Living Empires. This is how we will let you live that story.

Sat. May 12 2018

This week sees the return of SPACE BINGO to Denver. We will be launching the weekly game show at the marvelous Tabletop Tap.

Plus, we’re working on a series of card games that are “mini Legacy games” that will feed into the main Living Starship board game. The working title is currently "Starship Academy” a Living Starship legacy prelude.

The idea is that each box will come with two unique character decks and a third deck of ‘tests”. The premise is that two players go head-to-head with cadets who are intraining at the Citadel Fleet Academy. The results of your series of fast set-collecting games will determine the Division (Health, Tactical, Operations, etc.) and Department Specialty that each character will serve in onboard your starship.

Wed. Apr 11 2018

The wheels are rolling hot and fast for the Living Starship Legacy Game development!

Today’s highlight is on the re-vamped crew cards (not much has visually changed from the previous version but the rules behind the information sure have.

Tue. Mar 27 2018

The RANKaree Kickstarter campaign is live now! Please go check it out and support it if you think a casual and fun card game is up your alley!

Tue. Mar 20 2018

The mighty LOGAN CHOPS has posted a video play-through and review of RANKaree on his YouTube channel. Please go watch it , Like it and subscribe to his channel.

Mon. Mar 5 2018

Big news! We plan to launch the Kickstarter campaign for RANKareeon Tuesday, March 27th. Stay tuned as we tease more details….

Tue. Feb 27 2018

The Living Starship play test we did this past weekend was a success. The new deck-building elements of the game (that replaced the previous dice-rolling mechanic) are working quite well.

Now it’s time to buckle down and polish off the RANKaree campaign. We’ve got a video to produce and still need to get all the elements for online digital play (via Tabletopia.com) uploaded, plus…you know….work, make a living, grocery shop and all that.

We did, however, come up with an improved design for the RANKaree cards (AFTER paying for 10 prototypes and uploading the images to Tabletopia), so there will be some more work to finish them up for print-readiness. What are your thoughts on the new look?

We decided that since the cards are meant to represent the crew of each player’s starship, they should have imagery to reflect that. While the idea of the old cards was to resemble the Fleet uniforms, the new cards accomplish both.

Tue. Feb 20 2018

There must be something in the air. We randomly discovered ANOTHER misprint/layout error in the military rank poster for the Living Starship setting. We ended up creating a whole new layout:

Mon. Feb 19 2018

So, we’ve been out of commission for a couple weeks due to medical stuff (you know, nothing major, just some spinal surgery). But…we are getting back on track now!

We are gearing up to launch RANKaree on Kickstarter in early March and still have a few review copies to send out. We happened to discover an irritating misprint (the Agency Corporal card is numbered with a “1” and should be the number “2” card in that suit) so we’re getting some replacement cards sent out.

While dealing with that and AFTER uploading all the graphic files on to Tabletopia so that the game can be played digitally, we thought of a better layout/design for the cards that is more reflective of the theme, especially given that the cards represent the crew of your starship:

Citadel Fleet Crew members are all issued uniforms that not only designate their division of service, rank and department specialty, but are wearable pieces of technology.

Their uniforms are attuned to each wearer's specific genetic identity and help regulate their bio-functions, integrate them directly into the ship's digital systems, serve as emergency space suits and can be upgraded with additional software and hardware device utilities.

Wed. Jan 17 2018

There are two opportunities this weekend to play test Living Starship in all it’s new glory.

This is the year that Living Starship dives into it’s final stages of development. We have ditched the dice mechanic system and it’s being overhauled to feature deck-building elements along with the already-existing worker placement methodology. We cannot describe the excitement of how the new format is making us feel.

RANKaree will be hitting Kickstarter in February and copies are being sent out to reviewers and are available for playing in Denver local game stores (Both Enchanted Grounds locations, Board Game Republic and the Wizard’s Chest).

Thu. Nov 16 2017

There’s a lot going on this weekend for us. First up is the FIRST EVER game of Space Bingo being held at Odyssey Beerwerks in Arvada, CO.

Then we will be play testing the second scenario of the Living Starship Board Game on Sunday at Board Game Republic in Denver at 2 pm.

Wed. Sep 20 2017

There’s so much exciting stuff finally coming together here at Cheeky Dingo that we’re nearly bursting at the seams.

Over the next couple weeks we’re going to gradually provide insight to most of what’s going on with the massive Living Saga line of products and will hopefully be launching the Kickstarter for the first offering - RANKaree.

Mon. Sep 4 2017

Had a smashing good time at B-Con & Conclave this weekend. We managed to demo/play test Rankaree, 3 sessions of Scenario #1 for Living Starship plus the very first test of Scenario #2 AND got in the inaugural play test of the new deck-building/legacy aspect of 7 Sign Circle!

Kudos to the organizers and volunteers who made the convention great and a special thank you to all the play testers who stopped at our table and contributed to the evolution and improvement of our games.

Tue. Aug 22 2017

Last week’s epiphany has evolved into a significant re-development of 7 Sign Circle. Follow along in the blog.

We are also now all set to demo games at Rocky Mountain Con on the last weekend in September. Come check out the latest developments in the Living Saga: Starship & Empires.

Tue. Aug 15 2017

So, in the midst of all the fervor of creating Living Starship Game content (Rankaree, the Living Starship Board Game, the solo character "Choose your own adventure"-style game books), I woke up this morning with a completely different game idea burning a hole in my brain.

Stay tuned for more details about a unique legacy-style deck building card game!

Mon. Aug 7 2017

We had a wonderful time at MaLCon this past weekend. Layman Kingsford sat on a couple panels (about GMing in role-playing game and one about games and fan-culture).